Twenty-six years in the past, DreamWorks launched the starry animated musical “The Prince of Egypt,” which chronicles the lifetime of biblical determine Moses, to each crucial and industrial success. The movie, that includes music by eventual “Depraved” composer Stephen Schwartz and the voices of Val Kilmer and Ralph Fiennes, is extensively considered a masterpiece — but the biblical animated movie style was seemingly deserted after the flip of the millennium.

Enter “The King of Kings,” Angel Studios’ effort to revive the faith-based youngsters’s film in theaters. The movie, which stars Oscar Isaac as Jesus, Pierce Brosnan as Pontius Pilate, Mark Hamill as King Herod, Forest Whitaker as Peter and Ben Kingsley as Excessive Priest Caiaphas, is cleverly framed as famed writer Charles Dickens (Kenneth Branagh) and his spouse Catherine (Uma Thurman) search to show their King Arthur-obsessed son Walter (Roman Griffin Davis) concerning the biggest king of all.

Loosely primarily based on Dickens’ “The Lifetime of Our Lord,” “The King of Kings” has already damaged the opening field workplace file set by “The Prince of Egypt,” pulling in over $14.6 million in presales alone forward of its launch this weekend.

Angel Studios’ Jordan Harmon isn’t shocked by the promising numbers — in any case, Angel’s distinctive pay-it-forward and crowdfunding “Angel Guild” fashions, each in full impact right here, are exactly what made 2023’s “The Sound of Freedom” a runaway success.

“It’s discouraging to assume that folks haven’t been fulfilling this huge of an viewers for that lengthy when it comes to the animated area,” Angel Studios co-founder Jordan Harmon tells Selection. “We much less have a look at issues like, ‘What are we lacking within our slate?’ We have a look at what the Guild is de facto resonating with. I believe the Guild naturally finds issues earlier than even the executives might know that it’s turning into a pent-up demand for the world.”

When Angel acquired the undertaking hailing from director Seong-ho Jang in November 2024, Harmon says there was “no query” that it could obtain a theatrical launch timed to Easter and the Holy Week main as much as it.

“This film is de facto ‘The Ardour’ for youths. We did an early screening, and I watched a number of children stroll out with tears on their face,” Harmon says. “They’re having this massively basic, transferring second within the cinema and its communal expertise, and so they’re feeling a lot energy and emotion that they’re getting this lovely relationship developed much more in direction of a love in direction of Christ. I really consider this movie has the potential to bless tens of millions of youngsters’ lives the place this turns into, for lack of a greater time period, a core reminiscence.”

Hamill, who voices tyrannical chief King Herod in “The King of Kings,” says he was drawn to the function not solely due to his Roman Catholic upbringing and affinity for movies like 1961’s live-action “King of Kings” with Jeffrey Hunter, however due to Herod’s deliciously evil persona.

“He’s a traditional villain. He has an entire lack of empathy. He’s kind of drunk along with his personal energy, with that well-known edict that each one younger male youngsters be slaughtered underneath the age of two. I imply, traditional sociopath,” he says. “I’d by no means get solid as King Herod if it was a live-action movie. That’s extra within the Victor Buono realm, the place it’s a must to be imposing bodily and rotund and imperious, and all of that. One of many causes voiceover is so interesting is that they solid with their ears, not their eyes. Should you can sound the half, that’s all they want.”

Hamill, who calls the movie “a revelation,” says he believes it is going to usher in younger viewers. “Youngsters are going to search out this enormously interesting, even when they aren’t drawn in direction of non secular tales. This one has all the things an amazing journey ought to have, and but it teaches such optimistic values: the thought of religion and selflessness and doing what’s proper for the great of everybody, and never simply your self,” he says, including that he’s hoping to search out time to see it in theaters. “I’d like to see it in an viewers with all grade schoolers. They’ll blow the roof off the joint!”

Angel Studios has leaned into the kid-friendly nature, providing a “Children Go Free” promotion giving out one free children ticket with the acquisition of an grownup ticket. “That’s been such a strong marketing campaign, as a result of lots of instances mother and father, both they don’t have the assets, or in the event that they do have the assets, they don’t have the time. You give them that little additional bump to the place they’ll go,” Harmon says, including {that a} youngsters’s film compelled the Angel group to create new methods to attract in a broader viewers than their extra adult-oriented content material.

“A number of Angel movies traditionally have been extra grownup kind motion pictures. They’re heavier and extra drama-based, so children don’t attend these as a lot. That was a novel problem,” Harmon says. “One which we expect we conquered fairly properly.”